


love that doesn't have a place to rest

by asexualrubyrose



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Raven makes a huge goddamn mess hits rock bottom and then sheepishly tries to fix it au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:35:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23352568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asexualrubyrose/pseuds/asexualrubyrose
Summary: Yang seems to crave time alone with you. It makes you apprehensive- you’re not stupid and neither is she- and you feel her questions pressing in the silence whenever you’re alone. For now, she plays along with the Aunt Raven routine in exchange for some off-the-record late night TV. “Five minutes,” you tell her.
Relationships: Raven Branwen & Yang Xiao Long
Comments: 3
Kudos: 17





	love that doesn't have a place to rest

**Author's Note:**

> title from never love an anchor by the crane wives
> 
> based on the poetry prompt "i am burdened by love because it compels me to go on living, / coerces me into a survival i do not want."
> 
> takes place in the larger context of a modern au bipolaryangxiaolong and i are obsessed with where raven fucks off after yang is born and spends 6-7 productive years living in her car and developing a substance abuse disorder, but qrow convinces her to come back after summer dies and be a big happy traumatized family/help him take care of the kids so he and tai don’t lose it completely :’) raven’s objective to stay distant from the kiddos (especially yang) is complicated by how lovable they are and who she is as a person

You don’t turn when you hear the door open. Over the last week, since you moved in, you’ve found yourself in the living room half-watching mindless TV at a low mumble until you’re exhausted enough to fall back onto your air mattress and stop thinking. Qrow is always jumpy when you leave your shared bedroom at night, still worried you plan to make another escape, but he’s made peace with your being alone in the house. You know Taiyang is somewhere behind that last locked door, but you still haven’t seen him, and three-year-old Ruby’s ceaseless energy leaves her sound asleep at night. The only one who has caught onto your unconventional schedule creeps around to the front of the couch in her bumblebee nightgown and curly bedhead. She looks especially weary in the dim light and shadow. “I can’t sleep,” Yang whispers. 

You hum doubtfully. You haven’t been a diligent bedtime-enforcer, and she’s been taking advantage. Yang seems to crave time alone with you. It makes you apprehensive- you’re not stupid and neither is she- and you feel her questions pressing in the silence whenever you’re alone. For now, she plays along with the  _ Aunt Raven _ routine in exchange for some off-the-record late night TV. “Five minutes,” you tell her, and she eagerly climbs up and scooches into the bony edges of your body. She seems to have no trouble drifting off there, breathing evenly against your thigh with one of your icy hands cupped under her chin, the fingers of your other hand carding through her hair. 

You couldn’t do it so easily, not quite yet. The smallest noise could still yank you out of a dead sleep. You try to remember the last time you slept solidly, curled fetal into someone else’s safety, and you get Taiyang, maybe even Summer or Qrow when they took turns making sure you saw the next morning. Six or seven years since someone loved you to sleep. In your absence, you got used to passing out instead, hoping this time you wouldn’t wake up. 

You nudge her gently after about ten minutes and the end of  _ Law and Order.  _ “Hey.” Her sticky fingers flex around your hand. Her eyelashes flutter. “Time for bed.”

“Mmmmkay,” she sighs. She sits up on her knees only to twist around, wrapping her arms around your neck and burying her face in your neck. You freeze in the bubble of warmth and bathtime-soft hair- you haven’t gotten used to this, either, the easy way hugs and kisses go around with these kids, the way affection always did with Summer. You’ve been steeped in apathy and self-hatred long enough to forget these gentle things Yang takes for granted. When you think about how Yang has grown up feeling wanted at all times, loving and being loved without a second thought, it’s easy to push through the shock, to wrap your skinny arms around her, let her warm your chilly fingers in the nest of her palms. You can’t remember what it was like to be so small or so trusting. 

You wish you could be a safe place, the good person she deserves. You wish you had died before you ever got the chance to fail her. 

“Goodnight, Raven,” she murmurs. Your arms release immediately when she pulls back and clambers off the couch. Then she pauses, like she often does to stare at you with questions on her face, and you think this might be it. But instead, as if you’re not a stranger and as if it’s not the first time, she says, “I love you.”

You never thought you could love anything more than you hated yourself. You never thought you could love anything more than alcohol, more than self-destruction or isolation or the freedom to kill yourself however you wanted, whenever you wanted. More than oblivion. More than lying. 

Yang isn’t the first person you’ve ever loved. But you’ve never been so desperate to be better, to really, honestly try. “I love you too, Yang,” you say. 

You think she gives you that lingering, thoughtful look again, though before you can determine whether it’s just sleepy eyes she yawns, “See you in the morning,” bare feet tiptoeing back down the hallway. 

It’s late, and colder than you remember, without her. You want to overthink, to allow fear to kick the anxious hive of your thoughts again, but instead you feel heavy. Time to give the air mattress another shot. You feel your way back to Qrow’s room in the dark. He stirs awake in bed, as he always does whether you trip over your mattress or not, and then relaxes as he remembers his sister is finally home. He falls asleep because he believes you aren’t going anywhere. Down the hall, your daughter- who knows she is your daughter, you’re sure of it- earnestly believes in you too. Who could you be, if you could trust yourself like that?

For now you’ll be the person who survived, despite yourself, and who is compelled to keep surviving, to keep waking up for your brother and daughter, to never prove them wrong. 


End file.
